Safety forms were approved on September 17 2013, by Kelly Drinkwater.

    Question 1: Since parathion and PNP use in our experiments are highly toxic chemical compounds, how do you deal with these reagents?

    To ensure the health of experimenters, all the experiments involved toxic chemicals are required to be operated in a fume hood and use gloves and respirators. After experiments, solution of these chemicals was very diluted. Then, we add bacterium Rhodococcus sp. Strain PN1, which was selected to degrade pesticides, to the solution. Incubating about three weeks, we measured PNP concentration again and found the solution became safe to the environment.

  

    Question 2: How does your project address safety risks?

    We designed kill switch in our project. It is expected to initiate the suicide genes when the toxic chemical PNP is low, which means the system finished it job.

  

    Question 3: What safety training have you received

    We organized special lab training together with Prof. Yi in our college. Safty training is included in every class we took.

 

    Question 4: Can you describe your project's risks to the environment?

    We make sure that the culture containing bacterium is sterilizedby autoclave. The bactrium used in our project is of low risk to the environment and we are making every effort to minimize the possible risks.